August 21, 2017

A bottle of Johnson's Baby Powder is displayed in San Francisco. (Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)

A Los Angeles jury today issued a $417-million verdict against Johnson & Johnson, finding the company liable for failing to warn a 63-year-old woman diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer about the risks of using its talcum products.

The verdict marks the largest award yet in a number of suits claiming that the company’s talc powder causes ovarian cancer. More than 300 lawsuits are pending in California and more than 4,500 claims in the rest of the country, alleging that the healthcare giant ignored studies linking its Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower products to cancer.

January 03, 2016

A San Diego group of attorneys is suing Monsanto to get millions of dollars for remediation projects to clean up San Diego Bay. Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) have been linked to cancer, neurological damage, thyroid problems and reproductive complications. Monsanto is all about the profits even when it has knowledge that what it's selling is poison. Cases have been filed in Federal Court in San Jose, Oakland and Spokane in addition to San Diego. Dozens more cities across America may soon follow suit.

Municipalities have been forced to shell out millions to clean up rivers, creeks and bays. It has been established that fishing in such places and consuming those fish is dangerous to human health. PCBs have shown up in breast milk and sea lions among other places. They are ubiquitous in our environment.

Monsanto marketed the PCBs under the trade name Aroclor. The chemicals accumulate in fish that are devoured by humans with the result that almost everybody who eats fish has a certain amount of PCBs in their system. PCBs were used in electrical equipment, highway paint, caulk and many other products. Monsanto's position is that, if their product was improperly disposed of, it was not their fault. Under California's public nuisance laws, however, a company may be held responsible if it knowingly marketed a product even though it knew it was hazardous.

Monsanto officials knew as early as 1969 that Aroclor was dangerous, but decided to keep manufacturing and marketing it anyway in order to increase profits. Their official discussions went so far as to say that Aroclor was likely a "global contaminant." Monsanto employees had thrown fish into a heavily contaminated creek and discovered that they started bleeding and losing their skin in about 10 seconds.

The Oakland city attorney said that the chemical giant "chose profits over people, and American cities and citizens are still suffering the consequences."

Robert Reich Nails Monsanto's Modus Operandi

In an excellent book, Saving Capitalism (For the Many, Not the Few), Robert Reich has a great section on Monsanto. I, therefore, give over the rest of this article to a quotation from this book:

Monsanto, the giant biotech corporation, owns the key genetic traits in more than 90 percent of the soybeans planted by farmers in the United States and 8o percent of the corn. Its monopoly grew out of a carefully crafted strategy. It patented its own genetically modified seeds, along with an herbicide that would kill weeds but not soy and corn grown from its seeds.

The herbicide and herbicide-resistant seeds initially saved farmers time and money. But the purchase came with a catch that would haunt them in the future: The soy and corn that grow from those seeds don't produce seeds of their own. So every planting season, farmers have to buy new seeds. In addition, if the farmers have any seeds left over, they must agree not to save and replant them in the future. In other words, once hooked, farmers have little choice but to become permanent purchasers of Monsanto seed. To ensure its dominance, Monsanto has prohibited seed dealers from stocking its competitors' seeds and has bought up most of the small remaining seed companies.

Not surprisingly, in less than fifteen years, most of America's commodity crop farmers have become dependent on Monsanto. The result has been higher prices far beyond the cost-of-living rise. Since 2001, Monsanto has more than doubled the price of corn and soybean seeds. The average cost of planting one acre of soybeans increased 325 percent between 1994 and 2011, and the price of corn seed rose 259 percent. Another result has been a radical decline in the genetic diversity of the seeds we depend on. This increases the risk that disease or climate change might wipe out entire crops for years, if not forever. A third consequence has been the ubiquity of genetically modified traits in our food chain. At every stage, Monsanto's growing economic power has enhanced its political power to shift the rules to its advantage, thereby adding to its economic power.

The Fight to Label GMOs

Beginning with the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970, and extending through a series of court cases, Monsanto has gained increased protection of its intellectual property in genetically engineered seeds. It has successfully fought off numerous attempts in Congress and in several states to require labeling of genetically engineered foods or to protect biodiversity. It has used its political muscle in Washington to fight moves in other nations to ban genetically engineered seed. To enforce and ensure dominance, the company has employed a phalanx of lawyers. They've sued other companies for patent infringement and sued farmers who want to save seed for replanting. Monsanto's lawyers have also prevented independent scientists from studying its seeds, arguing that such inquiries infringe the company's patents.

You might think Monsanto's overwhelming market power would make it a target of antitrust enforcement. Think again. In 2012, it succeeded in putting an end to a two-year investigation by the antitrust division of the Justice Department into Monsanto's dominance of the seed industry. Monsanto has the distinction of spending more on lobbying—nearly $7 million in 2013 alone—than any other big agribusiness. And Monsanto's former (and future) employees frequently inhabit top posts at the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department, they staff congressional committees that deal with agriculture policy, and they become advisors to congressional leaders and at the White House. Two Monsanto lobbyists are former congressman Vic Fazio and former senator Blanche Lincoln. Even Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas was at one time an attorney for Monsanto. Monsanto, like any new monopoly, has strategically used its economic power to gain political power and used its political power to entrench its market power.

It's useful to view the strategy of the new monopolists as integrating economic and political dominance. They acquire key patents and then spend vast sums protecting them and charging others with patent infringement. In addition, they use mandatory licensing agreements to require potential competitors to use whole lines of their products and prevent customers from using competing products, thereby creating de facto industry standards. Favorable court rulings, advantageous laws, and administrative decisions to forgo antitrust lawsuits or bring them against competitors extend these de facto standards to entire sectors of the economy. [end quote]

And so, dear reader, we live in a world in which large corporations feel free to pollute and despoil the environment including the food we eat because they have not only market dominance but because they have political dominance as well. The revolving door between government and corporations swings ever so easily, the hinges are well lubricated. Congresspersons and their staff have easy access to lucrative jobs once they have established their contacts on the inside. They just have to lobby their old friends on behalf of Monsanto and other large corporations giving them a free license to pollute and purvey dangerous products. The hallmark of these products is not that they will kill you immediately like the poor fish that Monsanto employees threw into a PCB polluted river, but that the symptoms will show up as cancer and other related diseases years later when Monsanto can no longer be linked to those outcomes.

More Bad News for Monsanto

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, joined by dozens of global food, farming and environmental justice groups announced December 4th, 2015 that they will put Monsanto on trial for crimes against nature and humanity, and ecocide, in The Hague, Netherlands, next year on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.

Vandana Shiva, physicist, author, activist and founder of Navdanya, and member of the RI Steering Committee said: “Monsanto has pushed GMOs in order to collect royalties from poor farmers, trapping them in unpayable debt, and pushing them to suicide. Monsanto promotes an agro-industrial model that contributes at least 50 percent of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Monsanto is also largely responsible for the depletion of soil and water resources, species extinction and declining biodiversity, and the displacement of millions of small farmers worldwide.”

Andre Leu, president of IFOAM and a member of the RI Steering Committee, said: “Monsanto is able to ignore the human and environmental damage caused by its products, and maintain its devastating activities through a strategy of systemic concealment: by lobbying regulatory agencies and governments, by resorting to lying and corruption, by financing fraudulent scientific studies, by pressuring independent scientists, and by manipulating the press and media. Monsanto’s history reads like a text-book case of impunity, benefiting transnational corporations and their executives, whose activities contribute to climate and biosphere crises and threaten the safety of the planet.”

Get set for an epic battle between a corporation that is destroying the planet and those who are pushing back against this monstrous corporate behemoth.

September 18, 2015

Scotland has banned genetically modified organisms (GMOs) within its country. "Scotland is known around the world for our beautiful natural environment—and banning growing genetically modified crops will protect and further enhance our clean, green status," said rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead. Here in the US the fight is just for the right to know that a food product should be labeled as GMO, and that's not going so well.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1599, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015. This is BS, of course, since the bill's real purpose is to preempt the rights of state and local governments to pass laws requiring the mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), to overturn GMO labeling laws already in place in several states, and to prevent the passage of any federal mandatory GMO labeling law in the future. So there is no free speech insofar as knowing what's in something we are eating is concerned. The law's attempt is to suppress truth in labeling.

GMOs were developed primarily to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup so that Roundup could be sprayed directly on crops and only the weeds would die. So whether or not GMO corn and soybeans are good or bad for you, the presence of poison sprayed on them can't be too good for human consumers when they eat such crops. Especially crops such as grapes and apples which have very thin skins and are vulnerable to soaking up the herbicides and pesticides sprayed on them.

The GMO process starts with the seeds only available from Monsanto which grow into the Roundup resistant corn and soybeans which must be purchased on an annual basis from Monsanto. Farmers who save seeds from the current crop are subject to lawsuits by Monsanto which claims the GMO seeds as their intellectual private property.

Food activist Vandana Shiva has been delivering a message that she has honed for nearly three decades: by engineering, patenting, and transforming seeds into costly packets of intellectual property, multinational corporations such as Monsanto, with considerable assistance from the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the United States government, and even philanthropies like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are attempting to impose “food totalitarianism” on the world. She describes the fight against agricultural biotechnology as a global war against a few giant seed companies on behalf of the billions of farmers who depend on what they themselves grow to survive. Shiva contends that nothing less than the future of humanity rides on the outcome.

Ever increasing amounts of Monsanto's poison are being sprayed on crops that American consumers are eating as super weeds have adapted to the stuff and are growing bigger than ever requiring more and more Roundup to kill them. The only rational solution is to go back to natural organic ways of dealing with weeds and pests as Monsanto's GMO crops are not sustainable. The only rationale for using Monsanto's GMO seeds and herbicides is that the farmers can get a larger crop yield per acre and thus make more money. But quality rather than quantity is what savvy American consumers are demanding more and more. So the market for organic food is growing. Organic food is non-GMO food that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides. With regard to animals they haven't been fed GMO corn or soy and haven't been given antibiotics or hormones.

San Diego Loves Roundup

San Diego is spraying Monsanto's Roundup (generic name - glyphosate) all over its freeways, public lands and waterways exposing San Diegans to this poison whenever they are driving or boating. In a letter to the editor of the San Diego Union, Susan Trump of North Part said this:

San Diego is liberally using Roundup, glyphosate, on public lands and waterways.

Entire countries such as France, Sri Lanka, Brazil and South Africa are banning the substance. We are past the age of ignorance. We understand the consequences and it is generally known that Roundup is not safe for humans, plants, insects or animals, yet its use continues to the extent that it is now in the food supply.

What does your grocery shelf and San Diego’s bay water have in common? Monsanto and its poisons!

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According to the French agency, glyphosate is used in more than 750 different herbicide products and its use has been detected in the air during spraying, in water and in food. Experts said there was "limited evidence" in humans that the herbicide can cause non-Hodgkins lymphoma and there is convincing evidence that glyphosate can also cause other forms of cancer in rats and mice. IARC's panel said glyphosate has been found in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, showing the chemical has been absorbed by the body.

Monsanto, which produces the glyphosate-containing herbicide, Roundup, strongly disagreed with the decision. "All labeled uses of glyphosate are safe for human health," said Phil Miller, a Monsanto spokesman, in a statement. (Did you know that this horrible stuff is routinely found in toxic screening on umbilical cord blood in our babies?)

And what did our own EPA say about this compound? “The EPA's 2012 assessment of glyphosate concluded that it met the statutory safety standards and that the chemical could "continue to be used without unreasonable risks to people or the environment."

About 180 million pounds per year are dumped on your food. It’s a systemic poison for plants, meaning the entire plant takes it up. More is deliberately dumped on “Roundup Ready” soy, etc. They are literally drenched and drowning in the toxic soup. Monsanto engineered crops to be resistant to a chemical it can more readily sell. It’s a win-win for the most evil company on the planet. Make and sell seeds of crops resistant to a poison it sells. And buy the government so that you will not be able to be informed if what you buy is GMO, and where possible get these bought off cronies to spoon-feed the public that your wares are safe. Now an ignorant public will be forced to buy and ingest your Frankenfoods and all the cancer causing poisons that have been sprayed on them. What a tremendous and diabolical scheme.

Nathan Donley, staff scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco said that this is a major victory in the fight against dangerous pesticides.

“California’s taking an important step toward protecting people and wildlife from this toxic pesticide. It’s nearly impossible for people to limit exposure to this toxin because it is just so widespread. That’s why we need much tighter controls on its use,” Donley said.

“More than 250 million pounds of glyphosate are used each year in the United States, and the science is clear that it’s a threat to public health and countless wildlife species. It’s long past time to start reining in the out-of-control use of glyphosate in the United States,” he added.

Shop Organic for the Sake of Your Family's Health

So shopping organic and buying from local farmers makes more sense if you want to protect your family's health. GMO crops won't kill you immediately. Glyphosate won't kill you immediately. That's safe to say. But cancer rates are going skyward for all segments of the population as toxic chemicals permeate our diets and our lifestyles. There is no proven link between GMOs and cancer, but common sense dictates that unnatural chemicals as part of our diet aren't good for us regardless of the lower prices for such foods. It's better to pay a little more and protect your family's health. Like cigarettes, GMOs sprayed with glyphosate won't kill you immediately, but cancer will eventually get you. Monsanto's role is to deny the link between the two as long as they possibly can.

To be sure GMOs allow for more food production per acre if you want to call it food. It's actually Frankenfood. But the demographics of the growth of human population are indeed scary:

The global food supply is indeed in danger. Feeding the expanding population without further harming the Earth presents one of the greatest challenges of our time, perhaps of all time. By the end of the century, the world may well have to accommodate ten billion inhabitants—roughly the equivalent of adding two new Indias. Sustaining that many people will require farmers to grow more food in the next seventy-five years than has been produced in all of human history. For most of the past ten thousand years, feeding more people simply meant farming more land. That option no longer exists; nearly every arable patch of ground has been cultivated, and irrigation for agriculture already consumes seventy per cent of the Earth’s freshwater.

But we shouldn't panic and conclude that GMOs are the only way to go. There are natural methods to produce more food. One way is to reduce the production of beef and encourage a more vegetarian diet. Beef cows consume tremendous amounts of grains in order to produce one pound of meat. If humans consumed the grains directly, more could be fed and more water would be available for human consumption rather than the vast quantities required for animal production.

In addition beef cows are fed tremendous amounts of hormones and antibiotics in order to fatten them up and grow to maturity faster. Whatever animal protein humans consume should be organic for the same reasons that vegetables need to be non-GMO and organic if one's family's health means more than the slightly increased dietary costs. Money can be saved by not eating out which costs about five times as much as the same meal prepared at home, and what's more most restaurants are serving GMO and non-organic foods. Most restaurants are serving GMO foods and animals who have consumed them unless stated otherwise. Their whole trip is to make foods taste good without regard to whether or not those foods are good for you. So you pay through the nose and get a dose of poison to boot.

1. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) urges doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients. They cite animal studies showing organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Human studies show how genetically modified (GMO) food can leave material behind inside us, possibly causing long-term problems. Genes inserted into GM soy, for example, can transfer into the DNA of bacteria living inside us, and that the toxic insecticide produced by GM corn was found in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses.

2. Between 1996 and 2008, US farmers sprayed an extra 383 million pounds of herbicide on GMOs. Overuse of Roundup results in "superweeds," resistant to the herbicide. This is causing farmers to use even more toxic herbicides every year. Not only does this create environmental harm, GM foods contain higher residues of toxic herbicides. Roundup, for example, is linked with sterility, hormone disruption, birth defects, and cancer.

3. Most of the health and environmental risks of GMOs are ignored by governments' superficial regulations and safety assessments. The reason for this tragedy is largely political. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for example, doesn't require a single safety study, does not mandate labeling of GMOs, and allows companies to put their GM foods onto the market without even notifying the agency.

Their justification was the claim that they had no information showing that GM foods were substantially different. But this was a lie. Secret agency memos made public by a lawsuit show that the overwhelming consensus even among the FDA's own scientists was that GMOs can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects. They urged long-term safety studies. But the White House had instructed the FDA to promote biotechnology, and the agency official in charge of policy was Michael Taylor, Monsanto's former attorney, later their vice president. He's now the US Food Safety Czar.

Will the US be the Last to Ban Monsanto's GMOs?

Many other countries are not falling for Monsanto's corporate nonsense and are labeling or outright banning GMOs. As I wrote previously:

Russia is considering legislation to criminalize GMO foods describing GMO food producers as terrorists. France, the largest agricultural producer in Europe, is preparing to restore a GMO maize ban in their country. Twenty-six countries, including Switzerland, Australia, Austria, China, India, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy and Mexico, have a total or partial ban on GMOs. Significant restrictions on GMOs exist in about sixty other countries.

Why does the US insist on doing the opposite by passing legislation that prevents states from banning or even labeling GMOs?

Even supposedly healthy restaurants like Subway are purveying meats from animals that have been factory farmed. This means they have been fed vast quantities of pesticide and herbicide sprayed corn and soy. They have been given huge amounts of antibiotics and hormones. Then they are made into sandwiches that people eat.

Subway's slogan is, "Eat fresh." But while the company may have established itself as the "healthy" fast-food alternative, many people don't realize that as the world's largest fast food chain, it is also contributing to a serious public health crisis, animal cruelty and environmental damage due to the company's use of meat from factory farmed animals. These filthy and inhumane operations cause an incomprehensible amount of animal suffering, poison our air, land and water, and give rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria that impact human health.

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"Every year, more than two million people in the United States get infections that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die as a result," according to a 2013 report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "In addition to the illness and deaths caused by resistant bacteria, the report found that C. difficile, a serious diarrheal infection usually associated with antibiotic use, causes at least 250,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths every year."

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“Without urgent, coordinated action by many stakeholders, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda of WHO. “Effective antibiotics have been one of the pillars allowing us to live longer, live healthier, and benefit from modern medicine. Unless we take significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, the world will lose more and more of these global public health goods and the implications will be devastating.”

The antibiotics used to fatten animals are hastening the day when they won't be effective against antibiotic-resistant bacteria and humans will die from minor infections as they used to before antibiotics were invented. And this is all so that factory farmers can make a few more dollars by bringing animals to market in less time.

Unless Americans wise up to where their food is coming from particularly restaurant foods, they are putting themselves at risk for diseases for which there aren't proven links to toxic substances in the food supply. These toxicities are put there so the corporate food giants and corporate farmers can make more money than they would have if they had supplied food products which hadn't been sprayed with toxic substances or had toxic foods fed to animals which are then butchered and fed to humans. As long as the link between these practices and actual human disease remains hazy, these corporations will continue to get away with it much as the cigarette manufacturers got away with selling a product that it took years to prove that it was cancer causing.

World's most widely used herbicide ingredient shown to cause variety of cancers by research arm of World Health Organization

Monsanto’s popular weedkiller is mainly used on crops such as corn and soybeans, which are genetically modified to survive it. It also"probably causes cancer" in humans, says IARC. (Photo: Studioshots/Alamy)

In a determination that could have far-reaching implications for the agro-chemical giants like Dow Chemical and Monsanto, the research arm of the World Health Organization has declared that glyphosate—the key ingredient of widely-used herbicides such as Roundup—should now be categorized as a "probable carcinogen" for humans.

In a report published on Friday in The LancetOncology medical journal, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), based in France, announced its findings after a meeting of 17 oncology experts from 11 countries met to review the available scientific research exploring the connection between glyphosate, as well as several organophosphate insecticides, and various human cancers. Though sometimes such chemicals are lumped together as pesticides, glyphosate is technically a herbicide, which targets other plants, not pests.

"Consumers have the right to know how their food is grown and whether their food dollars are driving up the use of a probable carcinogen." —Ken Cook, EWGAccording to IARC, glyphosate is used in more than 750 different herbicide products and its use has been detected in the air during spraying, in water and in food. The panel of experts concluded that "limited evidence" exists to show the herbicide can cause non-Hodgkins lymphoma in humans and additional "convincing evidence" that it can cause other forms of cancer in both rats and mice. Researchers noted that glyphosate has been found in the blood and urine of agricultural workers, showing the chemical has been absorbed by the bodies of those who work most with it.

As the Associated Pressexplained, the research agency—which provides academic and scientific research FOR the WHO—has four levels of risks for possible cancer-causing agents: known carcinogens, probable or possible carcinogens, not classifiable and probably not carcinogenic. Glyphosate now falls in the second level of concern.

Though Monsanto immediately and predictably rejected the findings of the IARC, scientists who have long-warned of the public health impacts and wider dangers of glyphosate say the announcement should add urgency to the debate about whether or not such products should be allowed to dominate the world's agricultural systems.

"The widespread adoption of GMO corn and soybeans has led to an explosion in the use of glyphosate – a main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup and Dow’s Enlist Duo," said Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group. "Consumers have the right to know how their food is grown and whether their food dollars are driving up the use of a probable carcinogen."

Though the IARC's finding have no regulatory bearing on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determinations about glyphosates and the other compounds studied, they do add weight to the body of evidence showing how harmful such chemicals are.

According to Marquez and her colleagues at PAN, since Monsanto’s signature "RoundUp Ready" corn and soy crops were introduced in 1996, more than 500 million additional pounds of glyphosate and other herbicides have been used in the United States.

"It should be noted that in well over a decade’s use of glyphosate in GE crops, hundreds of millions of pounds of this chemical have been released into the environment," said Marquez. "USGS surveys document widespread water contamination, and — as documented in a recent Consumer Reports study — residues of glyphosate also show up in our food. Even though glyphosate is so widely used, the U.S. does not currently conduct biomonitoring for glyphosate residues, and USDA conducts only minimal testing for food residues."

What's more, the pesticides and herbicides on which farmers have now been forced to rely may no longer be working. As Marquez explains: "The dramatic growth in herbicide use in the U.S. driven by GE technology has resulted not only in increased human exposure to these chemicals, but also in the development of herbicide-resistant ‘superweeds.’ Farmers are offered more toxic mixes of herbicides as a so-called solution to this new problem. Dow’s recently approved Enlist seeds — designed for use with a mixture of glyphosate and the antiquated, highly toxic herbicide, 2,4-D — offer a case in point."

In other words, the more these chemicals are used, the less effective they become.

As Al-Jazeera notes, scientists and farmers from around the world have raised other concerns over glyphosate and tried to ban its use:

Channa Jayasumana,with Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, published a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2014on a possible link between glyphosate and chronic kidney disease in farmworkers. His research found that excessive heat and dehydration may weaken the workers' bodies, making them more susceptible to pesticides and heavy metals, which can lead to kidney disease.

Based on that research, the Sri Lankan government moved to ban glyphosate in spring of 2014. But Monsanto raised objections to the report's findings, and the ban was lifted. The chemical was, and continues to be, widely used on farms in the country.

The research also suggested a link between glyphosate and a mysterious kidney disease that has killed thousands of farmworkers in Central America. At least 20,000 farm workers have died of chronic kidney disease in Nicaragua in the last two decades, The Guardian reported in February. Researchers who have studied the disease in Central America say that it mainly affects agricultural laborers working under conditions of excessive heat and dehydration, but other factors, including pesticides, may play a role.

June 22, 2014

One of the most recent RoundUp studies suggests it can impact testicular function in just eight days after exposure, meaning the need for precautions and interventions is an urgent one indeed.

The effects of Monsanto’s RoundUp and its key ingredient glyphosate are becoming clearer with time as more research continues to be carried through. But even for years, scientists have suspected it of altering hormone and reproductive function. One of the most recent studies suggests it can impact testicular function in just eight days after exposure, meaning the need for precautions and interventions is an urgent one indeed.

About 20% of young European men have sperm counts below the World Health Organization reference level of 20 m/ml, and 40% have levels below 40 m/ml. Further, semen quality deterioration and fertility issues are also escalating.

“Testicular germ cell cancer (TGC), which has been rising in the last five decades. Congenital malformations of the male reproductive tract, including undescended testes and incomplete fusion of the urethral folds that form the penis. Low testosterone.”

The Institute of Science in Society points to endocrine-disrupting chemical glyphosate as a culprit.

The researchers, led by Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini from the University of Caen, France, exposed rats to a concentration of just 0.5% RoundUp, similar to the level found in water after a crop is sprayed with the herbicide. They then measured sperm function at 2, 3 and 4 months following exposure.

While there was no difference in concentration, viability, and mobility of the sperm at all three periods, there was an increase in abnormal sperm formation beginning as soon as the 2 month mark.

“Roundup was found to change gene expression in sperm cells, which could alter the balance of the sex hormones androgen and estrogen,” reports GM Watch on the study. “A negative impact on sperm quality was confirmed, raising questions about impaired sperm efficiency. The authors suggested that repeated exposures to Roundup at doses lower than those used in agriculture could damage mammalian reproduction over the long term.”

In the study overview, the authors note, “The repetition of exposures of this herbicide could alter the mammalian reproduction.” A troubling statement, but not one without precedence.

As this report from Dec. 2009 Mother Earth News shows, knowledge about the detrimental effects of RoundUp on reproduction has a history.

“The potential real-life risks from this are infertility, low sperm count, and prostate or testicular cancer. But, ‘Symptoms could be so subtle, they would be easy to overlook,’ says Theo Colborn, president of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange. ‘Timing is of critical importance. If a pregnant woman were to be exposed early in gestation, it looks like these herbicides could have an effect during the sexual differentiation stage. They really lock in on testosterone.’ The bottom line is more research is needed before we can fully understand the effects of glyphosate exposure.”

Research is beginning to catch up and show that RoundUp, its glyphosate, and its creator Monsanto, are all detrimental to our collective health. But will the studies be enough and will they be in time to prevent the large-scale harm that could occur? Now is the time to initiate change to protect all living organisms on the planet.

May 05, 2014

Very recently, the Organic Consumers Association have demanded that U.S. regulators such as the FDA, EPA, and USDA ban glyphosate as many other communities and even nations have. Why? Because a new piece of research found that the toxic ingredient is actually found in the breast milk of women, leading to damage to underdeveloped human beings.

Approximately 1 billion pounds of pesticides are sprayed on crops in the United States alone every single year. Thanks to pesticide/herbicide-resistant GMO crops, that number is growing every year. Much of this pesticide spraying contains a toxic ingredient known as glyphosate – the primary poisonous active ingredient in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide RoundUp. Regulators as well as Monsanto claim that this ingredient is excreted from the body, but numerous studies have shown that not only is it causing numerous health problems, but it is showing up in urine samples, blood samples, and even breast milk.

1. Glyphosate Found in People’s Urine

It has been revealed by numerous scientists that herbicides and pesticides bioaccumulate in the body, eventually leading to a toxic overload of sorts. One study conducted by a German university found very high concentrations of glyphosate in all urine samples tested. The amount of glyphosate found in the urine was staggering, with each sample containing concentrations at 5 to 20-fold the limit established for drinking water. But this is just a single piece of evidence that pesticides are out of control.

Another more recent study found thatanimals and humans who consume pesticide-laden GMO foods have extremely high levels of glyphosate in their urine. What’s more, chronically sick people have higher levels than healthy people. Conversely, people who eat primarily organic foods, and animals that are given feed from non-GMO plants, have lower levels of glyphosate in their urine. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology.

Very recently, the Organic Consumers Association have demanded that U.S. regulators such as the FDA, EPA, and USDA ban glyphosate as many other communities and even nations have. Why? Because a new piece of research found that the toxic ingredient is actually found in the breast milk of women, leading to damage to underdeveloped human beings.

2. Glyphosate Found in Breast Milk

Moms Across America and Sustainable Pulse found ‘high’ levels in 3 out of the 10 samples tested. The levels found in the breast milk testing of 76 ug/l to 166 ug/l are 760 to 1600 times higher than the European Drinking Water Directive allows for individual pesticides.

“The mothers tested are mostly familiar with GMOs and glyphosate. Most of them have been trying to avoid GMOs and glyphosate for several months to two years, so the levels of mothers who are not aware of GMOs and glyphosate may be much higher,” Moms Across America Founder and Director, Zen Honeycutt, stated.

3. Glyphosate Found in our Blood

In addition to being found in urine and breast milk, glyphosate has also been found in people’s blood in 18 different countries. A new study entitled, ‘The effect of metabolites and impurities of glyphosate on human erythrocytes (in vitro),’ explains just how RoundUp chemicals are invading our human blood.

Researchers exposed participants’ blood to different levels of glyphosate consistent with the ranges and concentrations which have already been well established in our drinking water, air, soil and food – between .01-5 millimolar (mM) for 1, 4, and 24 hours. What they found was that glyphosate and other ingredients in RoundUp lead to ‘slightly significant’negative effects on red blood cells. In other words, our blood is simply not ‘RoundUp Ready’.

It seems that regulatory authorities as well as the biotech industry can no longer claim that toxic ingredients such as glyphosate don’t bioaccumulate in the body and are excreted. As anyone may have guessed, these toxins really are doing some damage.

February 22, 2014

"The presumption that new chemicals and technologies are safe until proven otherwise is a fundamental problem," study authors write

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer

Toxic chemicals including some pesticides and solvents may be behind the increasing number of cases of neurodevelopmental disabilities—including autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—among children, researchers warn.

"We have the methods in place to test industrial chemicals for harmful effects on children's brain development—now is the time to make that testing mandatory," stated study co-author Philippe Grandjean. The findings are presented in a study by Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Philip Landrigan, Dean for Global Health at Mount Sinai published online Saturday in Lancet Neurology.

"The greatest concern is the large numbers of children who are affected by toxic damage to brain development in the absence of a formal diagnosis. They suffer reduced attention span, delayed development and poor school performance. Industrial chemicals are now emerging as likely causes," said Grandjean.

The new study follows similar research by the authors published in 2006 in which they reviewed clinical and epidemiological studies and identified five industrial chemicals as developmental neurotoxicants: lead, methylmercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, arsenic and toluene.

Manganese has been linked to diminished intellectual function and impaired motor skills, and solvents have been linked to hyperactivity and aggressive behavior, the authors write.

The effects of neurotoxicity can be society-wide, the authors note, as loss of IQ points may bring down earnings thereby affecting GDP. They can be costly as well; for example, the annual cost of lead poisoning in the U.S. is $50 billion, while behavioral problems associated with neurotoxicant exposure could also require special educational services and may even lead to incarceration, the authors write.

"The presumption that new chemicals and technologies are safe until proven otherwise is a fundamental problem," the authors write, adding, "Voluntary controls seem to be of little value."

To confront this "global, silent pandemic," the authors urge an international strategy that takes a precautionary approach to fully evaluate new chemicals before they hit the markets. Testing on industrial chemicals and pesticides already on the market should also take place, they say.

"The problem is international in scope, and the solution must therefore also be international," Grandjean stated. "We have the methods in place to test industrial chemicals for harmful effects on children's brain development—now is the time to make that testing mandatory."

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April 28, 2013

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, may be "the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment," say authors

- Andrea Germanos, staff writer

The active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide may be "the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment," being responsible for a litany of health disorders and diseases including Parkinson’s, cancer and autism, according to a new study.

"Negative impact on the body" from glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup, "is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," according to a new study. (Photo: astridmn/flickr) It's "the most popular herbicide on the planet," widely used on crops like corn and soy genetically engineered to be "Roundup Ready," and sprayed on weeds in lawns across the US. But in the peer-reviewed study published last Thursday in the journal Entropy, authors Anthony Samsel, an independent scientist and consultant, and Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, crush the industry's claims that the herbicide glyphosate is non-toxic and as safe as aspirin.

Looking at the impacts of glyphosate on gut bacteria, Samsel and Seneff found that the herbicide "enhances the damaging effects of other food borne chemical residues and environmental toxins," and is a “textbook example” of "the disruption of homeostasis by environmental toxins."

The researchers point to a potential long list of disorders that glyphosate, in combination with other environmental toxins, could contribute to, including inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, depression, ADHD, autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, cachexia, infertility, and developmental malformations.

The herbicide's "Negative impact on the body is insidious and manifests slowly over time as inflammation damages cellular systems throughout the body," they write.

The authors conclude:

Given the known toxic effects of glyphosate reviewed here and the plausibility that they are negatively impacting health worldwide, it is imperative for more independent research to take place to validate the ideas presented here, and to take immediate action, if they are verified, to drastically curtail the use of glyphosate in agriculture. Glyphosate is likely to be pervasive in our food supply, and, contrary to being essentially nontoxic, it may in fact be the most biologically disruptive chemical in our environment.

The new findings may add further momentum to concerns from food safety and food sovereignty advocates who have challenged Monsanto's grip on corporate agriculture and its genetically engineered crops.

In a "March Against Monsanto" in cities in the US and beyond, activists plan to gather on May 25 to highlight environmental and health concerns from genetically engineered crops and call out the corporatism that allows "Organic and small farmers [to] suffer losses while Monsanto continues to forge its monopoly over the world’s food supply, including exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup.

October 11, 2010

Accountability: Corporate Arrest in Hungarian Toxic Mud Disaster

Hungarian police on Monday arrested the managing director of the company at the center of a toxic sludge disaster, as the body of the last missing person was recovered, bringing the death toll to eight.

An aerial photo taken on October 8 shows a part of the village of Kolontar. A second flood of toxic sludge from a storage reservoir at a Hungarian aluminum processing plant is "likely" after a new cracks appeared in a dike, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.

The National Investigation Office said in a statement it had "taken into custody Zoltan B., the managing director of MAL ZRT, for interrogation in connection with the mud disaster that caused the death of a number of people."

According to the website of MAL Hungarian Aluminum Production and Trade Company, its managing director is Zoltan Bakonyi.

At the same time, the body of the last person missing was recovered a week after Hungary's worst-ever chemical accident, the regional chief of the disaster relief services, Tibor Dobson told the Hungarian news agency MTI.

"The body of another victim has been found near Devecser, bringing the total to eight," Dobson said.

The two villages of Devecser and Kolontar were hardest hit when a reservoir at an alumina plant in Ajka, 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Budapest, burst, sending a torrent of toxic sludge across an area of 40 square kilometers (15.4 square miles) and polluting the Danube and many of its tributaries.

Meanwhile, engineers, volunteers and disaster relief teams were racing against the clock Monday to finish building a new dam to contain a feared new wave of slurry from a likely second break in the reservoir walls before forecast heavy rain arrives later this week. Scene: Hungarian evacuees face long wait to return home

"The new dam is 70 percent completed" and should be finished on Monday evening, Dobson told AFP.

So far, no official estimates have been made of the total cost of the damage caused by the spill, which officials describe as the worst-ever in the country and an ecological catastrophe.

But environment state secretary Zoltan Illes reckoned MAL could face having to pay up to 73 million euros (102 million dollars).

Prime Minister Viktor Orban told parliament Monday that MAL should be called to account for the disaster and "placed under state control."

"Since it was not a natural disaster, but man-made, it won't be the taxpayer who foots the bill, but those who caused the damage," Orban said.

Illes estimated that the costs for the damage to the watercourses alone "will probably amount to 10.2 billion forint and the cost to the environment a further 8.0-12.0 billion forint."

Dead fish have been sighted as far as Tahi, which is around 40 kilometers north of Budapest, as well as closer to the capital itself. But disaster relief officials argue the fish have probably been washed along the river and are not a sign that the pollution is continuing to spread.

Indeed, alkaline levels -- a sign of water contamination -- much closer to the site of the accident are still falling.

Kolontar's entire population of around 800 people have been forced to evacuate until the construction of the second dam has been completed and the authorities give them permission to return.

"Construction work is going ahead. There were no unforeseen hiccups overnight," Dobson said.

The new dike measures 30 meters (98 feet) wide and four meters high, and will be around 1,500 meters in length when completed.

According to Illes, 600,000-700,000 cubic meters (21-24 million cubic feet) of sludge spilled from the reservoir last week, leaving 2.5 million tonnes still inside it.

Illes said it was still unclear whether MAL "overloaded the reservoirs or not. But if that is the case, it's illegal storage of waste and that constitutes a crime."

The company's three owners are among Hungary's 100 richest people, with personal fortunes of between 61 million and 85 million euros.

MAL, which was set up in 1995, posted annual revenues of 157 million euros and a profit of 715,000 euros in 2008.

With eight people confirmed dead, no-one else is missing. But 45 people remain hospitalized, with two said to be in very serious condition.

July 04, 2010

They’re hidden hazards that work against us, pretending to be harmless when in fact they’re toxic and cause dangerous illnesses and diseases. They’re disguised as ordinary substances, most of which we would never consider toxic and use regularly during the course of our daily chores. And because we don’t really understand the significance of the chemical names on the label, we live in ignorance of the dangers that these poisonous substances can cause. They’re in detergents, cleaners, shampoos, soaps and even in the cosmetics we use to make ourselves look better. They’re marketed as “new and improved” and “natural” and “proven to provide results”, but in reality, they’re chock-full of harmful chemicals that are carcinogenic and cause various other illnesses and medical conditions, most of which we’re not aware of until it’s too late.

The problem with these dangerous chemicals is that it is hard to identify their toxic nature even if you’re aware of the hazards they cause. Manufacturers are bound by law to display the names of all ingredients on the label, and they comply with them. But what do the terms sodium lauryl sulphate, propyl parabens, triethanolamine, propylene glycol, methyl, methoxyclor, formaldehyde, phenol, triclosan, perchlorethylene and ammonium hydroxide mean to you? Do you understand the toxicity in these chemicals and the dangers they pose to human health?

Unless manufacturers are forced by the law to display on the label that the product is harmful, we don’t know or realize that we are touching (and therefore ingesting by mistake too when we fail to wash up properly after handling cleaning solutions, detergents, creams, perfumes, et al) and inhaling noxious substances on an everyday basis. And because of this, even if the poison is in minute quantities, they affect us in the long term and cause cancer, respiratory illnesses, skin rashes and itchiness, and various other medical complications. They’re especially dangerous for children because they have the potential to cause hormonal imbalances which could result in growth and fertility problems. For adults too, the chemicals in these everyday products have been linked to impotence and infertility in both men and women.

So what do you do to protect your family from these dangerous chemicals?

·Buy products that do not contain too many toxic chemicals. There are a variety of herbal brands on the market that clean just as well without causing hazardous consequences.

·Wear gloves when handling cleaners and detergents.

·Wash your hands thoroughly after you handle them.

·Store them out of the reach of children.

·Ensure that your dishes are washed well and free of soapy residue that sticks on to your food.

·Don’t spray your home with insecticide or pest repellants when your children are around or without a mask. Ensure that all windows are open so that your home is cleansed of its toxicity by the flow of fresh air.

·And as much as possible, minimize the use of harsh detergents and cleaners by avoiding spills or cleaning them up before they become stubborn stains, and keeping your home clean and free of pests like roaches and ants.